


The Arrival

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Ties that Bind [6]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Arrivals, Beginnings, Family, Gen, Knight & Squire, introductions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roald arrives in Legann.





	The Arrival

The Arrival 

After a long journey, they came to a fork in the road. One fork ascended a bluff to the granite turrets and towers of Legann castle, while the other continued straight to the stone walls and iron gates encircling Port Legann, protecting the city from attack. 

“We could head up to the castle, but I’d prefer to show you some of Port Legann first,” Lord Imrah said to Roald, nudging his stallion straight at the intersection. 

“Yes, sir.” Roald kept Shadow alongside his knightmaster’s horse, wondering what places Lord Imrah planned to show him. 

“You’ll like Port Legann, Your Highness.” The shout with the syllables dragged out in the southern fashion as if the listener had all morning to hear came from Bryce, one of Lord Imrah’s guardsmen who had accompanied them from Corus. During their travels, Roald had learned that class distinctions mattered less to southerners than northerners, but that courtesy—never seeming curt with anyone regardless of rank—and conversation—the ability to make pleasant talk with everybody—were elevated to art forms. Everyone was expected to talk with everybody else whether lord, prince, squire, or common soldier. “It’s the nicest city in the realm. Nicer even than Corus if you'll believe it.” 

“I’m sure it’s a very nice city,” Roald called over his shoulder to Bryce, not about to admit that one part of the country was superior to any other as that could affront someone or promote regional rivalries but also determined to praise any area that he traveled to. If a beaming peasant had pointed proudly to a dungheap, he would’ve felt compelled to agree politely that it was a very charming dungheap. Not that Port Legann was a dungheap, thank Mithros. It was one of the jewels of the realm, a port where wealth and luxury flowed in with the tides. 

“That’s a matter of opinion, Bryce,” Lord Imrah put in dryly. “Not everyone would agree with you on that.” 

“The people in Port Legann are the nicest in the country.” Bryce was undaunted. “Everyone would have to agree with me on that, milord.” 

“No, they wouldn’t.” Lord Imrah’s tone managed to sound even drier. “That’s also a matter of opinion, and not one that’s supported by our court records.” To Roald, he added in an undertone, “You must forgive Bryce, lad. He’s traveled around the kingdom but still remains convinced that he’ll never find another place to compare to Port Legann, and he doesn’t bother to hide that view, I’m afraid.” 

“There’s nothing to forgive him for, my lord.” Roald had certainly not been offended by Bryce’s devotion to his city. “A man should be loyal to his home.” 

“Yes, but not blindly so,” responded Lord Imrah. They were in the shadows of Port Legann’s walls, and, when he craned his neck to stare up at the top of the imposing fortification, Roald could see helmets glinting on the patrolling sentries on the battlements and bows forever ready to fire sticking out of crenellations. 

As they rode up to the iron gate that led into Port Legann, the soldiers guarding it bowed deeply. With a nod to the sentries as they passed, Lord Imrah went on, “Port Legann is not so different from anywhere else in that it has beautiful parts and ugly parts, Roald. I intend to show you some of its beautiful parts today, but, in due time, you will see the ugliness as well.” 

Roald was unsure how to reply to this pronouncement—an expression of appreciation would have been appropriate for the first part of the comment but improper for the second—so he merely nodded his head to indicate understanding. Godsfather Gary was always observing that a fool’s silence could often masquerade for wisdom. Roald crossed his fingers that this would be the case in his current situation. 

Roald had more excuse to remain silent as they rode, hooves clopping against the cobbled stone streets, into Port Legann. The walls and gate had been forbidding—designed to intimidate any potential invader—but inside the city, the oppressive feeling was clearly meant to lift. The streets were broad, not constricting alleys, and everywhere Roald’s glance chanced to land, there was a blaze of color. 

Bright signs carved with words for the literate and images for the unlettered hovered over the doors of shops bustling with customers. Even more vibrant were the cloth awnings above many stores and homes to shield the street below from the sun that was much more powerful in Port Legann than in Corus. Most vivid of all were the fabrics of the people thronging the streets, who were hurrying about their business with nods of greeting rarely seen between strangers in Corus. 

“Everything is so colorful, my lord.” Roald’s eyes fell on a juggler entertaining a crowd in exchange for coin at a corner. 

“Color attracts customers and attention here. We’ve many peacocks in Port Legann, squire.” Lord Imrah’s lips quirked as he turned his stallion into a square. “This is the Square of Justice.” 

Pointing at a white building that was almost blinding amidst the vibrance of the surroundings which was dominated by columns that reminded Roald of the architecture of the Old Ones at the height of their empire and a sword statue jutting from a crowning spire, Lord Imrah explained, “That’s the criminal court where magistrates try criminal cases—theft, murder, piracy, and the like—and where the criminal records that aren’t kept at the castle are stored.” 

Roald’s gaze was suddenly drawn to the gallows, the whipping post, and the stocks and pillory that were the central feature of the square. Nobody was being hanged, the square was not echoing with the cracks of a lash and the tortured screams of a thrashed man, but there were two doubtlessly penitent criminals being pelted with excrement and rotten vegetables in the stocks and pillory. Roald told himself sharply that this was justice, not the spite of a vindictive mob, but he was grateful when Lord Imrah distracted him. 

“Across the square, you will see the civil court, which handles non-criminal legal issues such as inheritances, sales, and apprenticeship contracts.” Lord Imrah jerked his chin at the a dome built with gently sloping arches decorated with scales rather than a sword on its rounded top. “In many ways, it’s more essential to keeping the heart of Legann beating than the criminal courts. The civil court records are stored there and in the castle.” 

“I’ll remember that, sir.” Roald thought that both courts and their records sounded vital to the governance of Legann. 

“Good.” Lord Imrah guided his horse over to the steps of a temple with a steeple so large that Roald believed it must cast a shadow the length of the square at noon. Roald rode behind him as Lord Imrah fought to be heard over the singing of a cluster of minstrels who were heralding the arriving and departing hordes of worshippers with hymns of praise to Mithros for gold tossed into their extended caps. “Here is the glory of the square, our temple to Mithros. People flock from all across the country and the Eastern Lands to pay homage to Mithros here, but it is also common for people to pray here before a criminal or civil court case is decided—they hope in their favor. Would you care to see the inside, Roald?” 

“Yes, my lord.” Roald was as eager for an opportunity to stretch his legs after a long journey as he was to explore the grand architecture of the temple. 

“Very well.” Lord Imrah dismounted and Roald followed him. After ordering his soldiers to watch his and Roald’s horses, he instructed Bryce to come inside with them and serve as their guard. 

Wondering how far many of the people streaming up the marble steps around him had traveled, Roald trailed behind Lord Imrah into the coolness of the sanctuary. The nave faced east, the sacred direction in which Mithros always rose with a new light after defeating the blackness of night. Wide, stained-glass windows made the walls sparkle with depictions of the eternal battle Mithros waged for light and justice against darkness and inequity. Altars with statues and flickering votive candles were hewn into the sides of the temple. 

With a palm on Roald’s shoulder, Lord Imrah steered him toward one altar. Aware that a prince was expected to be devout—Mama and Papa had never tolerated him or the other children squirming like worms in a puddle during religious ceremonies—Roald dumped a handful of coins into a silver box to pay for a votive candle, lit it, and knelt on the plush cushions before the altar. Beside him, he noticed out of the corner of his eyes Lord Imrah doing the same while Bryce stood vigilantly at their backs. 

Closing his eyes, Roald said the prayer he often did when appealing to Mithros for no urgent reason: Make me as strong and as just as you are. When the world looks at me, may they only see your fairness and righteousness, not my injustices and inequities. Burn away my flaws and forge my heart in your image. 

Slipping open an eyelid, Roald ventured a peek at his knightmaster to figure out if he was expected to keep praying. To his relief, he saw that Lord Imrah was making the sign against evil on his chest and rising with a murmured “So mote it be.” Roald quickly copied him, grateful to be on his feet again. 

As they returned to the nave, Roald gasped as he noticed a gilded sun etched into the center of the ceiling. 

“I was wondering when you’d notice, lad.” Lord Imrah chuckled as he traced Roald’s awed gaze. “Stunning, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, sir.” Roald found it hard to speak and stare simultaneously. “It’s as dazzling as the sun itself.” 

“Better move along then.” Lord Imrah shepherded Roald toward the door. “Don’t want you blinded by the light, Roald.” 

Near the doors out of the temple, Roald’s attention was captured by the trickling of a fountain. Glancing into the bubbling water, he glimpsed coins shining like stars at the bottom. 

“That’s a wishing fountain.” Lord Imrah answered Roald’s question before Roald could ask it. “People make a wish, throw a coin in the fountain, and, if they have enough faith in Mithros, the wish is supposed to be granted as long as it is a just one.” 

“Where does the money at the bottom go, my lord?” Roald was old enough to appreciate how pertinent it was to follow the gold. 

“Every night, the Mithran priests fish the money out and use it to buy meals for the city’s hungry,” replied Lord Imrah. 

Deciding that even if his wish didn’t come true, he would at least be filling the belly of a beggar tonight, Roald made his wish—that he would make his knightmaster happy and that his knightmaster would return the favor by not making his life a misery for the next four years—before plopping a coin into the fountain. 

“Now that you’ve fed the poor, let’s go feed you, squire,” Lord Imrah suggested, and Roald thought this was a very wise idea since his stomach was starting to fret about breakfast. 

Once they were back on their horses, Lord Imrah led him past guild halls to a teeming marketplace which he said was named after an earlier Conte king, Roald the Quiet. As they rode past fishmongers selling the day’s catch, butchers hawking their meats, and bakers waving their tantalizing goods under the noses of passerby, Roald could see a statue to the honored king in the middle of the market. 

He was rather surprised that a market was dedicated to Roald the Quiet, since while the reign of that king had been a peaceful and prosperous one, Roald the Quiet had never been a popular figure because of the many laws he had enacted and the fact that it was rumored that he never smiled except when he was in Legann. He’d only smiled in Legann—Roald remembered with a start—because he had been born into the Legann family before he was adopted into the Conte line to secure the continuation of the dynasty. 

Roald the Quiet’s mother had been the only sibling of the ill-fated King Roger IV, who had loved hunts more than women, produced no natural heirs, and gotten himself killed by being too Conte stubborn to see a healer even when he was coughing up a lung. It was no wonder that Roald the Quiet had tried to bring order into what must have seemed a chaotic world to him, Roald thought with a surge of sympathy for his ancestor. He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to leave his home and family, being forced to change his name, when he was only seven as Roald the Quiet had been. It was touching that Roald the Quiet was still beloved in Port Legann. 

He was dragged out of his historical reflections when Lord Imrah pushed a half-moon pastry studded with almonds into his hands. “Have an almond crescent. They’re a Legann speciality.” 

“Almonds are my favorite, sir.” Roald grinned before biting into the flaky crust, which was offset by the crispness of the nuts, just as the almond flavor was the ideal counterpoint for the sweetness of the dough. Swallowing, he exclaimed, eyes widening, “This is delicious.” 

“It better be.The baker charged enough for it.” Lord Imrah grunted his disapproval of the pastry’s exorbitant price. “We must march up to the castle before my wife accuses me of greeting everyone in the city before her.” 

An hour later, they were stepping into the entrance hall of Legann castle. Coming from what Roald assumed was a sitting room off the entrance hall, he could hear the distinct notes of a lute playing a traditional tune about a giantess falling in love with a knight while a maternal tone scolded, “Mattie, how many times must I tell you to keep your stitches small and evenly spaced? These won’t do at all. You’ll need to pull them out and begin again.” 

As he and Lord Imrah walked into the parlor, Roald saw a girl of about six in the corner playing the lute while her sister, who appeared to be about eight, sat on a sofa, laboring over needlepoint under the scrutiny of a petite woman with dark hair who must have been their mother. 

“Da!” the girls shrieked the southern affectionate term for father in unison. They dropped their lute and needlepoint before racing into the open arms of their father. 

“My lord.” The lady of Legann glided forward to receive a kiss on the cheek from her husband once Lord Imrah finished embracing his daughters. Glancing at Roald with keen brown eyes, she asked, “Who is your new squire?” 

“I was just getting to that.” Lord Imrah took the plunge. “Prince Roald of Conte, may I present my wife, Lady Marielle, and my daughters, Mathilde and Julienne?” 

Lady Marielle looked so shocked that Roald knew she had not received a letter warning her that her husband was coming home with the Crown Prince, but she swept into a smooth curtsy, and her daughters mimicked her with less grace. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” 

“The pleasure is all mine, my lady.” Roald bowed. Thinking that he didn’t want to be the only squire in the kingdom referred to by title by his knightmaster’s wife, he added, “Please call me Roald.” 

“You can call me Mattie,” piped Imrah’s older daughter, a girl who had inherited her mother’s dark hair and her father’s pale eyes. 

“Don’t be a lackwit.” Lord Imrah’s younger daughter glared at her elder sister with amber eyes the same color as her hair. “You don’t want a prince calling you by a boy’s name.” 

“I’d be happy to call you whatever you wish, Mattie.” Roald could already predict that getting in a word edgewise would be an uphill battle at Legann castle. 

“Your sister may go by whatever name she prefers, and you may not mock her for it, Julienne,” Lord Imrah told his younger daughter sternly. 

“Roald”—Lady Marielle appeared to have difficulty refraining from using his title—“please come with me, and I will show you the chamber I had prepared for you.” 

He murmured his thanks and let her lead him up a staircase. As she strode down a corridor with him at her side, she remarked, “The room may be a bit cozy, so if it not to your liking, please inform me and I will have you assigned another chamber immediately.” 

She opened a door that had a breathtaking view of the Emerald Ocean. The furniture—desk, bed, drawers, and nightstand—were all maple. Shells dotted the windowsill, a tapestry of a sea warmed the wall by the bed, and a porcelain ewer and basin were on the nightstand. 

“The room is perfect, thank you, and the view is marvelous, Lady Marielle.” Roald was being sincere, not merely polite. 

“I had the room cleaned before you arrived.” Lady Marielle’s smile couldn’t conceal her discomfiture, and Roald hated how his status had disconcerted her. He could add this to the long list of ways his life would be easier if he weren’t heir to the throne. This was definitely one of those moments where he would trade all his royal privilege for the right to be treated as if he weren’t special. “You might find some odds-and-ends from my husband’s former squires, but if they offend you, please have a servant get rid of them.” 

With a curtsy, she left. Curious what knickknacks he could possibly find offensive, Roald searched the room and was about to give up his quest as futile when he spotted a ledge filled with the detritus of earlier squires in the headboard of his bed. He saw a fraying scarf in Pearlsmouth colors, a tattered falconer’s glove with the Irimor crest, a rusting knife with the Nond coat-of-arms etched into the hilt, and a broken archer’s armguard with the Wellam emblem emblazoned on it. 

None of the items were particularly useful in their current state of disrepair but he found them endearing anyway, mute testaments to the boys who had lived in this room while they trained for knighthood. Across time, he felt a connection to them without knowing who they were. The momentos they’d left behind were comforting in a way that was difficult to define. 

Roald unpacked his clothes and other belongings neatly—a servant must have brought up the baggage Roald had forgotten in the flurry of the arrival in Legann— before returning downstairs to find his knightmaster. He was crossing the entrance hall to the parlor when he realized that the acoustics of the expansive entrance hall bore the voices of Lord Imrah and Lady Marielle to him. 

“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me”—Lady Marielle sounded frantic and furious. 

“Because I knew you’d react like this,” interrupted Lord Imrah, and Roald wouldn’t have had to be a genius to deduce that they were talking about him. 

Deciding that this conversation contained too much information relevant to him for him to wish to intrude upon it before he had learned all he could, Roald ducked behind a pillar and continued to listen to the discussion raging in the next room. 

“What will we feed him?” Lady Marielle demanded, and Roald thought that any drama around what he ate was unnecessary. He was almost always hungry and would eat anything that stayed under his nose long enough. “I had a simple meal planned for this evening, but he’s royalty. We’ll have to ask the cooks to prepare something a little fancier.” 

“He’s a growing boy,” pointed out Lord Imrah. “He’ll eat anything he’s offered.” 

Lady Marielle was already fixated on the next dilemma. “What about his room? I put him in the one all your other squires have used, but we can’t just keep him in there with all the old things they left behind. We’ll have to find somewhere else for him.” 

Roald couldn’t hold back a gasp at this, and the same acoustics that brought Lady Marielle’s and Lord Imrah’s voices to him must have carried his gasp to them. 

“The walls have ears.” Lord Imrah spoke in a louder tone, and Roald, recognizing that he had been caught eavesdropping, grimaced. “Do come in instead of hovering in the entrance hall, Roald.” 

His cheeks burning, Roald stepped into the sitting room, where Lady Marielle appeared as pale as he did flushed. She seemed as mortified that he had overheard her as he was to have been caught eavesdropping. 

“My lady is concerned about whether you are pleased with your room, squire.” Lord Imrah’s eagle eyes rested first on Roald and then on his wife. 

“The room is perfect and the view is marvelous, my lord,” Roald repeated what he had said earlier and hoped that Lady Marielle would believe it this time. 

“That’s fine then.” Lord Imrah glanced at his wife, who gave a short nod, and then commanded, brisk as the wind off the ocean, “Walk with me please, Roald.”


End file.
